Supreme Court Blocks Deportation of Alleged Venezuelan Gang Members for Now

The American Civil Liberties Union argues that the administration is defying the Supreme Court’s recent ruling requiring due process for would-be deportees.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 3, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court on April 19 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting an unspecified number of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody who are alleged to be members of a criminal gang.

The new, unsigned order granting the Venezuelans’ emergency application was issued on Saturday at about 12:55 a.m. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito’s reasoning will be added to the court’s file later, according to the order.

“The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,” the order states.

The order notes that a request to block the deportations is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. After the Fifth Circuit acts, Solicitor General D. John Sauer should file a response to the application with the Supreme Court as soon as possible, the order states.

The order was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency request on behalf of its Venezuelan clients late on April 18 asking the Supreme Court to immediately block the Trump administration from deporting the clients.

The emergency application in A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump, which challenges President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal immigrants who are alleged or confirmed criminal gang members, was directed to Justice Samuel Alito. A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. are the initials of two of the detained men.

The ACLU is also seeking a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, as well as a stay of removal order from the Fifth Circuit, according to the application.

On March 14, President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10903, in which he officially declared that Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”

The group is using mass illegal immigration to the United States to harm U.S. citizens, undermine public safety, and support the goal of the Venezuelan regime with which it is associated to destabilize “democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” the proclamation said.

The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to authorize the “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of members of the group who are Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.

The application said the ACLU’s clients are challenging the Trump administration’s use of the federal statute to deport them. The clients “are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice or an opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of this Court’s order in Trump v. J.G.G.”

“Many individuals have already been loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport” and are at risk of being sent to a prison in El Salvador, according to the application.

On March 15, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to deport at least 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are now incarcerated “possibly for the rest of their lives” at the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center, which is “one of the most notorious prisons in the world,” the application said.

The application alleged that many deported since March 15 were not members of Tren de Aragua.

“Such false accusations are particularly devastating given the present Applicants’ strong claims for relief under our immigration laws,” the application said.

In Trump v. J.G.G., the Supreme Court on April 7 granted the president’s request to pause a federal district judge’s orders preventing his administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua but determined that detainees must be given an opportunity to challenge their removal.

“We grant the application and vacate the [temporary restraining orders],” the court said in a per curiam, or unsigned, opinion in the case. The decision applied to two original restraining orders and an extension issued by Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.

The Supreme Court application came the day after U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas denied the ACLU clients’ request for a temporary restraining order halting removal efforts.

Although the would-be deportees told the court they “are at imminent risk of summary removal” from the United States, the court asked the government “whether it would remove A.A.R.P. or W.M.M. pending resolution of their habeas petition,” Hendrix wrote in his April 17 order.

A habeas petition is a request for a court to review a person’s detention or imprisonment. It can also be used to contest a criminal conviction.

“The United States answered unequivocally, stating that ‘the government does not presently expect to remove [the applicants] A.A.R.P. or W.M.M. under the [Alien Enemies Act] until after the pending habeas petition is resolved’ and that ‘if that changes, we will update the Court,’” the judge wrote.

This means the petitioners are not at “imminent risk of summary removal, and they cannot show a substantial threat of irreparable harm,” Hendrix wrote.

Sam Dorman contributed to this report.